France vows to punish synagogue bombers
(Adds separate incident, statement by Paris Grand Mosque)
PARIS, Jan 12 (Reuters) - France's interior minister vowed on Monday to punish those behind overnight attacks on Jewish places of worship that fuelled fears of a rise in anti-Semitic incidents linked to Israel's military offensive in Gaza.
A synagogue in Saint Denis near Paris and a house in the eastern city of Strasbourg used as a place of worship, were attacked with fire bombs overnight. The incidents followed a petrol bomb attack against a synagogue in Toulouse last week.
No one was injured in either of Sunday's attacks, although the window of a kosher restaurant next to the synagogue in Saint Denis was broken.
"There wasn't much damage but there's a whole symbolic dimension to this," said Pierre Levy, a regional official for the Jewish organisation CRIF, speaking of the attack in the Strasbourg suburb of Bischheim.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who has pledged to crack down hard on any violence linked to protests against the fighting in Gaza, called Sunday's attacks "cowardly and unacceptable" and vowed to punish the perpetrators.
"Everything will be done to find those responsible for this attack and to bring them to justice for this intolerable act," she said in a statement.
France has western Europe's biggest Muslim population and officials have been acutely sensitive to the danger of trouble spilling over from protests against Israel's offensive in Gaza.
More than 100,000 people marched in France on Saturday to protest against Israel's assault in Gaza, with almost 4,000 police deployed to prevent a repeat of violence that marked a similar demonstration in Paris last week.
According to the UEJF, a Jewish students' association, Sunday night's attack was the 30th anti-Semitic action recorded in France since Dec. 27, when Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for rocket attacks from the region controlled by Hamas militants.
Sunday's incident was condemned by Jewish leaders and politicians from the main parties and the head of the Paris Grand Mosque also appealed for calm.
"The Paris Grand Mosque calls on France's Muslim community to keep its calm in the face of the great emotion caused by the war situation in Gaza, and calls for vigilance against all forms of provocation, wherever they may come from," the mosque's rector, Dalil Boubakeur, said in a statement. (Reporting by Laure Bretton in Paris and Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Louise Ireland)
